Needless
Things & Zenescope Entertainment
Present
The
Winter Wonderland Contest!
If
you listen to the Needless Things Podcast
and visit Needless Things, you could win a Wonderland prize pack from
Zenescope, which includes:
*One
Alice action figure sculpted by Clayburn Moore, as reviewed here on Needless Things
*One
Grimm Fairy Tales: Wonderland board game
*A
trade paperback collection of the Wonderland
comic book from Zenescope Entertainment
Just
send an e-mail to phantomtroublemaker@gmail.com
with the subject “Winter Wonderland” telling us one item you
would take with you if you were going down the rabbit hole into the
wild world of Wonderland.
Be
sure to include your name, phone number (in case we need to contact
the winner), and mailing address.
Contest
runs now through midnight on December 13th,
2014. One entry per individual.
*****
I
kicked off last week with a review of a Vader action figure, and I’d
like to do the same this week.
Apparently
I am collecting wrestling action figures again. This is a problem. I
need to be reducing the number of lines I am collecting, not adding
to them.
But
I let myself buy those Wyatt family figures and they were so good. It
reminded me that Mattel’s WWE line is one of the best 6” scale
lines on the market today. And while I can avoid modern wrestlers for
the most part, when I see some of my favorites from the past I tend
to weaken. That’s how I ended up buying the Road Warriors from a K
Mart that’s closing and how I ended up buying today’s subject –
Big Van Vader.
It
also helped that I had found last week’s Vader
at the same time and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy two
completely different Vaders in one transaction.
My
early memories of Vader are weird, because I could have sworn he was
around when I was a kid, but he didn’t even debut in WCW until I
was in high school and didn’t show up in WWF until 1996, two years
after I had graduated and a year before I was watching WWF full time
again. This leads me to believe that I’ve been wrong about taking a
hiatus from watching wrestling in the early 90s. I must have still
been tuning in in some capacity because I remember seeing Vader in
action before his WWF days. I suppose there’s a good chance I was
still tuning in to the late night Saturday shows from time to time.
The
timing of Vader’s debut is doubly strange to me because it means
that I was too old to be scared of wrestlers, yet he is in my
consciousness as a thing I have been scared of. Or intimidated by, at
the very least.
Either
way, I have always been a fan of his look and his work. He’s one of
those guys that looked and acted like a monster. Well, except for
this time:
FIRST
GLANCE
This
is a big, solid figure. Mattel really nailed the Mastodon’s
proportions. He’s thick and sturdy without looking fat. I want to
note that the black rings around his wrists are actually the tops of
his gloves and should have been pushed down further for the pictures.
As often happens, it was late when I took the pictures and I wasn’t
really thinking about what those were. The figure looks better once
you move them.
PACKAGING
It’s
a little big, but the current WWE Elite packaging is good. The window
has a nice, asymmetrical shape to it that catches the eye and shows
off all of the included gear. The angled left side with the picture
of the Superstar makes these much
easier to browse on the pegs than other toy lines. The graphics are
nice and consistent throughout the line, despite depicting very
different individuals from different eras.
You
guys know I love my cardback bios, and the Elite line has some of the
best. Each figure gets a detailed, yet brief, history. It’s enough
to give you an idea of the Superstar’s history and persona without
being a burden to read.
LOOKS
This
figure looks great. There’s no denying that. The head sculpt is as
good as any that Mattel has released in this line and better than
most. But I’m just not sure about that facial expression. That open
mouth makes ol’ Leon look kind of like a big sack of duh. It’s
better when you put the mask on, though, and even better than that
with the mastodon helmet thing on. Obviously.
Sculpting
choices aside, the head looks great. The hair is textured and defined
nicely. The paint is great and in all the right spots. Vader’s hair
is the right color and those baby blues are centered and vivid.
Vader’s
singlet is sculpted on rather than just painted and is correct. They
didn’t just use some other similar body and call it a day. The
figure’s proportions are correct as well – it’s not just the
mask and the colors – every bit of this collection of plastic parts
screams “Vader”.
The
gloved hands look good. These might be Undertaker fists; I don’t
know. But they work for Vader. Especially when you have the black
rings around the wrists pushed down into place (ahem).
The
kneepads aren’t perfect, but they look right, if that makes sense.
They’re the really big, wide ones like Vader wore. They just don’t
have textures.
The
boots look great. If it’s weird to be consistently impressed with
the level of detail in a particular action figure line’s footwear,
then call me weird. I just feel like Mattel always does such a great
job with the boots on these guys. They have seams and textures and
look lived in.
ACCESSORIES
Vader
comes with his trademark mask and the crazy-ass helmet armor thing he
wore to the ring in WCW.
The
mask is rubber and doesn’t seem like it’s going to fit over the
figure’s head, but it does. And perfectly. Once it’s on it looks
great and isn’t too big. It’s very difficult to get head
accessories to both look and work right on action figures, so this
mask is very impressive.
The
mastodon helmet is made of a soft plastic and fits over the figure’s
unmasked head. It looks great and is pretty darn creepy. It could
also pass for a Krampus mask.
FUN
Like
all of the Elite figures, Vader is packed with meaningful
articulation. The figure can achieve pretty much any pose you might
expect the real Vader to be able to perform. With any thicker or
larger action figure, the concern is always that the necessary girth
of the parts will reduce the range of the joints. This is not the
case with Vader. All of the joints have the depth you would expect of
them. Obviously his kneepads interfere with those joints, but they
can slide around a bit or even be removed entirely.
Between
the fun mask accessories and the great articulation, this is a fun
figure. My only regret is that I don’t have a Cactus Jack for him
to powerbomb.
OVERALL
I
absolutely love this figure. I’ve been very satisfied with almost
every WWE Elite figure I’ve bought and Vader is no exception. This
isn’t exactly a cheap line, but compared to other lines in the same
price range I feel like Mattel is really delivering bang for buck
here.
If
you’re a fan of Vader this figure is a must-have.
Same goes if you’re just collecting Legends.
Additionally,
I would strongly encourage any action figure collector to pick out a
WWE Elite figure next time they’re at the toy store. Just find one
that you think looks neat and buy it. I think it’ll be worth your
dollars just to have the fun of opening it up and seeing just how
good these really are.
5
out of 5
Or
go and find one on Amazon and help ol’ Phantom pay the bills around
this joint:
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